Spent some time recently on a assignment for April Six Agency out of San Francisco. They threw out the exciting prospect of heading to Toronto, Canada for a week to create a series of environmental portraits for Cogeco/ Peer 1, a managed cloud, hosting and IT services company servicing the globe. Of course we jumped at the opportunity before realizing that a blizzard was on course for Toronto and we’d be working through a snow storm!! Had a great couple of days with a great and collaborative crew. Below are some of the results including the massive banners and OOH executions currently running across the country.

Post shoot we had a little time down in Toronto and got to see a lot of what this amazing city had to offer. Look forward to getting back there soon.

With equipment in this industry evolving at such a volatile rate, it’s up to us to stay on top of current trends, software, and marketing patterns that may develop seemingly overnight. Social media being one of the most noteworthy, keeping up with how to better improve your brand can be a full time job (and for some people it is).

Luckily, with high end equipment that is built to perform and last many years, we get a little break from the insanely rapid development of new products that render yours obsolete. Take for example medium format camera systems. A digital back that was released in 2001 is still capable of producing a higher quality image (under the correct conditions) than today’s latest and greatest DSLRs. It may not be as convenient or quick, but the technology can still keep up.

The same goes with lighting gear. Our Profoto packs and heads are built to withstand anything short of the zombie apocalypse, but some new battery technology has dramatically reduced weight, recycle time, and maximum number of flashes out of a charge. The reduced weight especially comes in handy with air travel when you are traveling with this much gear:

If you know what Lithium Ion batteries are, you also know that they are a little bit lighter than a normal NiCad battery and significantly lighter than a Lead Acid battery (which is what comes standard in our Profoto flash packs, as well as underneath the hood of your car!). When we found out that we could save 5lbs per flash pack by switching to the new Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries, we immediately called up B&H. It doesn’t sound like much, but when you are traveling with 5 or 6 batteries, it adds up. Not to mention it’s easier on the assistants shoulders when he has to carry all this stuff.

We don’t always buy every fancy new piece of equipment that comes around, but in cases like this, we couldn’t pass it up.